Herennios Philon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Herennios Philon ( Philon of Byblos , Latinized Herennius Philo ) was a Phoenician scholar, grammarian and historian . He lived in the late 1st and 2nd centuries.

Life

Little is known about the life of Philo. The main source is the entry about him in the Suda , a 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia. This entry contains inconsistent information on the chronology, the interpretation of which is controversial in research. According to the Suda, he was born around the time of Emperor Nero (54–68) and reached a great age. According to Philon's own statements, to which the author of the Suda entry refers, he was 78 years old when Herennius Severus was consul, in the 220th Olympiad according to the Greek calendar (years 101-104). However, the actual time of Herennius Severus' consulate is unknown. If Philon turned seventy-eighth in the period mentioned, he would have to have been born long before Nero took office. Since he wrote about the emperor Hadrian , he must have lived through his reign (117-138). He was probably born around 70; his death is likely to be set after that of Hadrian (138).

His Roman name is based on that of his patron Herennius Severus and perhaps indicates unfree origin and release.

Works

Little remains of Herennios' rich literary production exist. His works, all of which were written in Greek, included:

  • a "Phoenician history" ( Phoinikikḗ historía ) in nine books, which is not mentioned in the Suda. Longer fragments have survived , which the church writer Eusebios of Caesarea handed down in his Praeparatio evangelica . Philo invokes the authority of a mysterious Phoenician scholar named Sanchuniathon who lived before the time of the Trojan War . In his "Phoenician History" he claims to have translated the history of the Sanchuniathon from Phoenician into Greek. Hesiod drew from such Phoenician sources without properly understanding them, and much in Greek mythology was of Phoenician origin and misunderstood by the Greeks who adopted them. The oldest peoples (the Phoenicians and Egyptians) would not have worshiped gods, but human benefactors. Philo thus proves to be a representative of a euhemeristic interpretation of the origin of religion, which says that the cult of gods arose from the worship of important and therefore deified people. The Christian Eusebios quoted Philo because he could use his explanation of the origin of the traditional polytheistic religion for his polemics against "paganism". Philon's work is of great value as a source for Phoenician mythology and religion. It is unclear how old and how credible his historical information is, where he got it from and how his information about the alleged source Sanchuniathon can be assessed.
  • a book "On the Rule of Hadrian", of which nothing is known except for the title handed down in the Suda
  • "About cities and their famous citizens" in 30 books, a cultural history based on geographical aspects, probably alphabetically ordered, in which he summarized all geographical, historical and biographical material available to him.

Text output and comments

  • Jan Radicke (Ed.): Felix Jacoby 'The Fragments of the Greek Historians' continued , Part IV A: Biography , Fasc. 7: Imperial and undated authors , Brill, Leiden 1999, pp. 36-61 (No. 1060). ISBN 90-04-11304-5 [with comment]
  • Albert I. Baumgarten: The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos. A Commentary . Brill, Leiden 1981, ISBN 90-04-06369-2 (contains pp. 8-30 a critical edition of the Philon fragments and the sources after Jacoby)

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Suda , keyword Philon ( Φίλων ), Adler number: phi 447 , Suda-Online
  2. ↑ On the dating problem, see Baumgarten (1981) pp. 32–35.
personal data
SURNAME Herennios Philon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herennius Philo; Philo of Byblos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Phoenician scholar, grammarian, and historian
DATE OF BIRTH at 64
PLACE OF BIRTH Byblos , Phenicia
DATE OF DEATH at 141